NICHOMACHEAN ETHICS

"Actions, then, are called just and temperate when they are such as the just or temperate man would do ; but it is not the man who does these who is just and temperate, but the man who also does them 'as' just and temperate men do them. It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would even have a prospect of becoming good. "But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors but do none of the things they are ordered to do. As the latter will not be made well in body by such a course of treatment, the former will not be made well in soul by such a course of philosophy." --Aristotle, NICHOMACHEAN ETHICS, Book 2, ch. 4, ll. 1105-1118 (1941, 2001) [As I was typing this basic quote from Aristotle, I could not help but reflect that in law school, as in the legal practice of the common law as well, that ours is and was the "reasonable man," standard, not the "just and temperate" standard explained so carefully by Aristotle.]